Report: Tennessee starting lineman Drew Richmond is transferring

Tennessee will reportedly be replacing a starter on the offensive line.

AL.com’s Matt Zenitz is reporting that starting RT Drew Richmond has entered his name into the transfer portal. Simply being listed in the portal does not bind a player to leave, but college football insider Brett McMurphy is reporting that Richmond will indeed be leaving the program.

Listed at 6-5, 309 pounds, the Memphis native recently completed his redshirt junior season with the Volunteers. In the class of 2015, Richmond was rated 4-stars, the No. 2 recruit from Tennessee, No. 3 offensive tackle and No. 56 prospect overall nationally on the 247Sports Composite.

Zenitz also reported that TE Eli Wolf, who started multiple games for the Volunteers, has entered his name into the transfer portal.

Source: Two Tennessee players have entered the NCAA transfer portal — starting right tackle Drew Richmond and tight end Eli Wolf, who started several games this season

Eli played hard and has good hands but not enough size and, being honest, talent. Richmond never got to his rating coming out of high school. The Butcher probably did him no favors by providing no coaching. He just never got consistently good. Thanks to both for playing at UT and good luck wherever you end up. I think it’s a smart move For both if we end up with O line players we hope to.

I wish him the best of luck, and thank him for giving his all for Tennessee.

Honestly, probably best for everyone. He came in as a five-star recruit who never seemed to figure it out. Unfortunately for him, our previous staff never did anything to help him.

With this news, I’m reminded of CJP after the Bama game when he said he was going to bring in 20 recruits who know what it takes. I think Wanya Morris will be one of those guys. Richmond would have lost his spot anyway, and now he can go somewhere he could make a bigger impact.

Regardless of what Richmond was capable of doing the reality is he was a starter. Which means he probably was better than what’s behind him. Even if we land Wright then there’s no guarantee they’re better than he would be this year. If nothing else he was at least a good depth piece if we get both 5 stars and they come in and Trey Smith/Cade Mays it up. Having him might have allowed them or one of them to move inside. Again though that’s one of our better linemen since few of them are good at this point. It’s a hit to some manner of depth at best and a loss of a starter and experience at worst. Eli was undersized but again, it’s experienced depth and our second best TE gone. We have no idea if our freshman will be as good as him this year. There’s no wins in this. We don’t have the talent or depth to be losing these two.

The way Richmond was playing, he probably knew he lost his starting role come spring. Between allowing sacks and false start penalties, won’t be a big loss anyhow. Eli never could get consistent with his catches. He knew he lost his job last year and probably wouldn’t be used much this year either.

I really don’t prefer to bash the young players…but they will not miss much, one of the worst Offensive lineman and busts I’ve seen in a while. The stuff that I saw him do and not do in games was mind blowing…and don’t know what video the UT staff was watching. Doug Matthews who is still close to the program pointed this out as well.